Halo Waypoint is up on XBL for download. There's some career tracking and some media stuff. I am level 29 Halo score and I received 4 Avatar award items; an ODST helmet, a Guilty Spark, and two clothing tops. Sounds like they are going to stream some episodes from that upcoming Halo anime on there, which would be cool. Other than that, I don't see much use for it.

I downloaded it and I really like the fact that it's free. I spent a fair amount of time browsing the content and even found a video I hadn't ever viewed. I couldn't care less about the milestones - mine was somewhere in the 20's too. Halo Legends is probably my most anticipated anime of the past 5 years and I was very happy to find that 4 of the episodes are exclusive to Waypoint - 1st airs Saturday and there's only a 24 hour window to view it.

Kudos to Microsoft and 343 for doing this and I think it's a great idea. I really enjoyed the Metroid Prime channel on Wii and this is far larger scale and better IMO. I'd love other game series to do the same thing - a Tom Clancy and Call of Duty waypoint would be awesome!

yeah i got it last week as part of the preview program ...its great,even though i am not a massive Halo fan,i am looking forward to the first Anime(The Babysitter)on therei got the guilty spark thing as well i was level 15 i think with my achievements

it makes me drool however if other developers followed suit like Kronovan says and made a Call of Duty or Star Wars Battlefront waypoints,however they aren't Microsoft

it makes me drool however if other developers followed suit like Kronovan says and made a Call of Duty or Star Wars Battlefront waypoints,however they aren't Microsoft

Ooooh...a Star Wars Battlefront waypoint or ever a Star Wars waypoint, I didn't think of that - now that would be nice. Of course we really need to get more decent Star Wars 360 games 1st; somehow I doubt the Battlefront 3 title from Rebellion is qoing to fix that.

Halo Waypoint is the first thing released from my studio (343 Industries). Thanks for the comments! It's not my project, but the Waypoint team is just down the hall and did an awesome job on it. Look forward to a lot more exciting stuff from us (My e-peen is level 23!)

Halo Waypoint is the first thing released from my studio (343 Industries). Thanks for the comments! It's not my project, but the Waypoint team is just down the hall and did an awesome job on it. Look forward to a lot more exciting stuff from us (My e-peen is level 23!)

They could have really done an awesome job if the launch had some Reach stuff with it. That's what we want!!

Halo Waypoint is the first thing released from my studio (343 Industries). Thanks for the comments! It's not my project, but the Waypoint team is just down the hall and did an awesome job on it. Look forward to a lot more exciting stuff from us (My e-peen is level 23!)

They could have really done an awesome job if the launch had some Reach stuff with it. That's what we want!!

Being a big fan of Halo games, as much as I'd love to see Reach content, I think now isn't the right time. ODST was just released and is still fresh in many minds, and any potential impact of new Reach content would be buried under the avalanche of new Holiday titles. I'm content to wait till the spring on it, when I have more time to digest it. Of course that's easy said for me, since I'm as big a fan of anime as I am video games. I personally think the Halo Legends exclusives are a real COOP. Gratz Kathode to you and your coworkers on a job well done.

I like the hoodie avatar reward as well. Between this and the UAV toy I changed my avatar look for the first time since the NXE launched.

Heh, I just did the same thing. Put on the ODST shirt and the I purchased the Predator RC unit from MW2.I hadn't touched my Avatar since the first time I made him. I wish they had included a few Hellfires with the RC unit.

I watched "The Babysitter" this morning. Have to say it wasn't that great. The animation, particularly on the ODST and Spartan armor, was pretty awful, and the "surprise" seemed to be telegraphed

Spoiler for Hiden:

as soon as you noticed that the Spartan wasn't talking.

Hopefully it will improve, but they don't seem to have put a lot of effort into the animation.

I watched it and thought it was very good. I disagree about the effort in the animation, as I thought some of the environment, backgrounds, panning and motion animation was damn good. In particular the ancient city looked excellent IMO, especially the details/textures that were revealed when the Spartan zoomed in on it. As to the Spartan armour; great character tech and character designs aren't something I've come to expect from Studio 4 deg C. Other than Animatrix - Beyond and 2 of the shorts from Memories, I can't think of any anime by that studio where I really liked the character designs. I agree about the short plot being somewhat predictable, but I still found it entertaining.

I think overall it lost something in the media streaming though, as I noticed a fair amount of artifacting, color bleeding and distortion - especially in line edges. I don't know if that was due to my craptastic Internet connection or the streaming tech that was used. As a comparison I slipped the Animatrix DVD in my 360 and viewed Beyond immediately after, and the contrast in quality was stunning. I really wasn't expecting the Waypoint exclusives to be on the scale and quality of the DVD so my expectations may not have been as high as others.

I watched "The Babysitter" this morning. Have to say it wasn't that great. The animation, particularly on the ODST and Spartan armor, was pretty awful, and the "surprise" seemed to be telegraphed

Spoiler for Hiden:

as soon as you noticed that the Spartan wasn't talking.

Hopefully it will improve, but they don't seem to have put a lot of effort into the animation.

I watched it and thought it was very good. I disagree about the effort in the animation, as I thought some of the environment, backgrounds, panning and motion animation was damn good.

Yeah, I didn't really have a problem with the environments and space scenes, but particularly with the Spartan armor the animators appeared to be lost. I thought the armor itself looked oddly shaped and often changed proportion when the character moved around. It really reminded me of the way a kid would try and draw a Spartan. I think the humans looked fine, but the uniformed soldiers looked really poor, in such a way that I was distracted by it.

The animation quality was very distracting for me. I was also noticing the proportions changing constantly. I didn't like how they basically made the Spartan out to be a Terminator. I also didn't like the Spartan going all kung fu with the Brute. It made me get the song stuck in my head. "All the Spartans were kung fu fighting. Their kicks were fast as lightning!"

As for the app itself, I liked it, but found out that there's no way to read the longer text boxes without using the controller. I frequently use my Harmony remote to poke around the dashboard. In the Waypoint app, I suspect that you have to use the right analog stick to scroll long text boxes. There's no right stick on my remote, and you can't move the highlight over with the arrow buttons, so you can only see the first chunk. That was a bit disappointing.

I downloaded the other day just to see what it is. I haven't played any Halo game since Halo 3, so having a central hub for all of my "career" achievements isn't that big of a draw. However, the legends episode was very well done I thought, and I am not a fan of anime.

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Tune in to hear me spout nonsense about Fantasy Football every Thursday evening at 6:08.

Halo Waypoint is the first thing released from my studio (343 Industries). Thanks for the comments! It's not my project, but the Waypoint team is just down the hall and did an awesome job on it. Look forward to a lot more exciting stuff from us (My e-peen is level 23!)

and i think everyone has had that 'Metroid' thought about a Spartan...disappointing that they went with it

but other than that i thought it was an enjoyable episode

Now that's it's been over a week since the 1st ep. was aired and it's been up on youtube for days, I won't worry about discussing your spoiler. 1st off, I'm not sure Metalic if by "Metroid thought about a Spartan", you're referring to the suit tech being similar -which I'd disagree with- or the fact that the spartan is a women. If it's the latter, I'm guessing you never read the early Halo novels in which female spartans figured strongly in the plots. As well, women spartans are present in Halo Wars. I don't see anything wrong with that and in fact it emphasizes something gamers who've only played the trilogy have a false impression about; that spartans are/were only male. Ep. 1 of the Baby Sitter was probably a bit too obvious in it's attempt at irony, but there's probably a fair number of Halo fans out there for which the thought of a female spartan may have never crossed their minds.

I didn't watch the episode, but I did watch a "making of" video on waypoint and I saw some really good animation and a few spots of very simplistic animation. I think it's intentional for whatever reason.

and i think everyone has had that 'Metroid' thought about a Spartan...disappointing that they went with it

but other than that i thought it was an enjoyable episode

Now that's it's been over a week since the 1st ep. was aired and it's been up on youtube for days, I won't worry about discussing your spoiler. 1st off, I'm not sure Metalic if by "Metroid thought about a Spartan", you're referring to the suit tech being similar -which I'd disagree with- or the fact that the spartan is a women. If it's the latter, I'm guessing you never read the early Halo novels in which female spartans figured strongly in the plots. As well, women spartans are present in Halo Wars. I don't see anything wrong with that and in fact it emphasizes something gamers who've only played the trilogy have a false impression about; that spartans are/were only male. Ep. 1 of the Baby Sitter was probably a bit too obvious in it's attempt at irony, but there's probably a fair number of Halo fans out there for which the thought of a female spartan may have never crossed their minds.

yes i did mean the woman,and no i haven't read any Novels,i didn't know it had been done before

The Duelist is on this Saturday so it says on the ticker feed that goes across the bottom of the screen

Myto can't download Halo Waypoint because it says something about her being connected to another 360,she says she thinks its because she got a new 360 when her old one RRoD on her...however mine did the same and i got another machine back,and i have had no problems

i presumed that kinda thing would only happen when you are offline(the license crap..not being able to play DLC offline and that kinda thing)..but if she is online,signed in and has access to everything else,i can't think why she can't download this

That's cool about the Duelist this Saturday; hadn't logged in for a few days so I wasn't aware of that.

Quote from: metallicorphan on November 17, 2009, 04:40:25 AM

Myto can't download Halo Waypoint because it says something about her being connected to another 360,she says she thinks its because she got a new 360 when her old one RRoD on her...however mine did the same and i got another machine back,and i have had no problems

i presumed that kinda thing would only happen when you are offline(the license crap..not being able to play DLC offline and that kinda thing)..but if she is online,signed in and has access to everything else,i can't think why she can't download this

That's strange - it should download just like any other demo or trial game. As long as her account is configured for a silver level account or better, she should be good to go. I'm wondering if that happened because XBL was temporarily busy or some other error occurred. I've had problems a few times accessing waypoint, but they were only temporary. I just put it down to increased network traffic due to MW2 or heavy usage of Waypoint. What about other 360 demos; can she download them successfully?

That's cool about the Duelist this Saturday; hadn't logged in for a few days so I wasn't aware of that.

Quote from: metallicorphan on November 17, 2009, 04:40:25 AM

Myto can't download Halo Waypoint because it says something about her being connected to another 360,she says she thinks its because she got a new 360 when her old one RRoD on her...however mine did the same and i got another machine back,and i have had no problems

i presumed that kinda thing would only happen when you are offline(the license crap..not being able to play DLC offline and that kinda thing)..but if she is online,signed in and has access to everything else,i can't think why she can't download this

That's strange - it should download just like any other demo or trial game. As long as her account is configured for a silver level account or better, she should be good to go. I'm wondering if that happened because XBL was temporarily busy or some other error occurred. I've had problems a few times accessing waypoint, but they were only temporary. I just put it down to increased network traffic due to MW2 or heavy usage of Waypoint. What about other 360 demos; can she download them successfully?

Nope, haven't re-tried it yet (and I am Gold level) - as Metal knows, my family is having an incredible "bad luck" phase - so much so that video gaming and GT presence has actually been affected. To quote Craig Ferguson - I know!

I can't remember which 360 has which HD on it now, so if it doesn't work on my console after trying again, I'll try to put it on the other console. Both launch consoles had problems after long years of overuse, but I never needed to transfer any licenses, so I just moved what I wanted via memory card. It sounds like folks are saying that shouldn't matter, so maybe another try will work (if I can fit it into my gaming time - yup, hooked on DA:O, whenever I get a chance to play.)

Btw, I agree with anyone who hates to pay for Avatar items - all I want is some sneakers ("athletic shoes," maybe, to the non USA peeps) like the ones they use in the icon for the shoe section, but aren't available to choose. The female items available for free are pretty lame, imo, unless you are 15 years old.

Actually, I am 15 years old... as are all of you over 14... it's just that I have to add a lot more years to get to my present "real" age.

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Mytocles (MY-toe-cleez)

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most!"- I don't remember who said it, and probably neither do they...

The next installment of the Halo Legends anime is online and it's totally f-ing awesome!!!!! It's called The Duel. Abso-friggen-lutely awesome. Like last week, it's free for today only (Sat). I don't know why they didn't lead with this one instead of the Baby Sitter from last week.

Yeah, that was awesome - loved the animation style! Studio I.G. is one of my favorite anime houses and I was surprised that Mamoru Oshii was involved with that short. I've really liked what I've seen so far, and I'm very pumped for Legends.

Last night when my son attempted to access Waypoint he received a message stating that it's now a Gold premium service. He was then given a prompt to go to a screen where he could upgrade his account - yeah right! I can tell you my son is one very unhappy camper about it; with only a silver account he can no longer run it and view his profile. That only people who play Halo online would want to access Waypoint is a fairly short sighted assumption by the XBL team IMO.